


"Ici Londres! Les Français parlent aux Français!"

by Cunien



Series: French Resistance Musketeers [2]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, French Resistance, French Resistance AU, Gen, Radio Londres
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 13:49:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2070579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cunien/pseuds/Cunien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is Easter, it is snowing, and Aramis has withdrawn into the cold, and a memory.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Quick little one-shot in the French Resistance AU, Athos Porthos and Aramis sit playing cards whilst waiting for BBC Radio Londres to broadcast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Ici Londres! Les Français parlent aux Français!"

**Author's Note:**

> I was feeling crappy last night and it was suggested on tumblr that I write something little with the French Resistance Musketeers, paying cards and gathered around a radio waiting for a message from de Gaulle, to cheer myself up. It was meant to be funny but ended up sad.
> 
> Just a quick little thing, bashed out super quickly, meant as a little prequel snapshot to Chanson d'Automne I guess?

They should be concentrating on other things: planning or discussing tactics or at the very least conserving both their energy and that of the battery in the old railway lantern that they use to illuminate the barn, on the nights where the explosives hidden beneath the hay bales mean they cannot risk a candle.

But it’s coming up to Easter and so unseasonably cold that the first few flakes of snow began drifting down from the powder grey sky around noon, and Aramis has that look in his eyes again, as though he were the fuse and the whole world the flame.

He hasn’t told them much, of course. Aramis is remarkably open about all the things Porthos wishes never to hear of, like the women he’s bedded and that time he dabbled in opium, and his many lurid theories as to the cause of the Mona Lisa’s smile. But when it comes to his life before he appeared that June day in Normandy, a little wild, a little skittish, he is as uncharacteristically close-lipped.

Aramis has explained the bare bones of it to them - at first he only alluded to some tragedy with the reseau he fought with in the Haute-Savoie region, far to the south east of France, near the Italian border. But as time and the comfort if companionship has eased him into something less freewheeling, less jagged, Aramis had explained that their network had been blown, his fellow maquis cut down where they slept. He and another named Marsac were the only left alive, and the other man had abandoned Aramis, wounded and confused amongst the dead.

So when Easter comes, or the sky turns paper grey with snow, it is hard for Aramis to fill his limbs with the easy buzz of purpose and brotherhood, and he withdraws once more into the cold and the memory.

_One for all, and all for one_ , Aramis is fond of saying, but Porthos isn’t quite sure how to remind Aramis of that, in his darker moments.

They may never know the whole story, but they know _Aramis_. They know to be careful, and present, and to remind him in a hundred tiny ways that he is alive, and with them now. In the cramped and hidden crawl space in the eaves of Serge’s old barn, they huddle together for more than just the sharing of warmth, and pretend when morning comes that they do not remember how Aramis had shaken and cringed and cried out in the darker hours of night.

Athos has tried, in his own way, to provide distraction through one of the bottles of good wine that he still seems able to procure, when even the black-market racketeers find such things difficult to get their hands on these days. Athos stubbornly refuses to share the details, and makes a valiant but ultimately doomed attempt not to drink the lion’s share.

For his part Porthos has produced a pack of cards, and promised on his soul (along with that of Athos and De Gaulle himself) that he will refrain from cheating. The cards are a breathtakingly racy set decorated with hand-drawn pin-ups that would normally make Aramis laugh out loud. Given to him by a grateful downed RAF pilot who they had helped hide and then escape back to England, they are one of Porthos’ most prized possessions.

But at the sight of the cards Aramis gives only a half sort of smile, so removed from his usual too-wide grin that Porthos has to restrain a growl of frustration. He pulls his coat a little tighter against the chill air of the barn, and scowls.

If only Athos would do more than sit, and drink, and fiddle the dial of the radio through waves of bleak static.

"You’re doing my head in," Porthos says, trying to put some measure of calmness in his voice. "Athos, please."

Athos merely affords him a glance, and goes back to turning the radio dial, inhaling sharply on the ever-present cigarette that even the nearby presence of a significant amount of explosives, plus barn full of combustible hay, cannot dissuade him from lighting up.

Porthos is about ready to storm over and smash the damn radio to bits, which is a new level of irritation for him, since he knows that the song of wires and components and broken parts would call to him to be fixed in a voice too loud to be ignored. 

But before he can do anything the static coalesces into something solid, a station flickering through the airwaves, and Athos gives a pleased little smile.

"Ici Londres! Les Français parlent aux Français!"

They’ve heard it countless times before of course, the familiar opening to the Free French’s BBC Radio Londres’ broadcast, but it never fails to make something stutter and flame inside Porthos. Words they may be, but to know that there is a world out there beyond the brutal reality of occupation, a world urging them to stay strong and to resist, is a great comfort to Porthos.

"Before we begin, please listen to some personal messages," says the voice. What comes next is always an absurd list of phrases, half of which are coded messages that have meaning only to the networks who are clustered around their radios across occupied France, waiting for their agreed code to begin some planned bit of resistance, an attack on a factory or a derailed train, perhaps. The other half are junk, nonsense phrases to mask the real codes. They are not waiting for a code themselves tonight, but they still listen when they can, since the German run French stations provide only biased news and demands for cooperation.

"Jacques likes big carrots."

Aramis barely even looks up.

"The writer was too strenuous with his quill."

This is the sort of thing that would normally have Aramis smirking - in fact, they regularly fill long, anxious nights spent in dark fields waiting for clandestine air drops by coming up with their own code phrases, the more innuendo-ridden the better.

"Claudette’s buns are sweet today."

Rene’s sword is very big.”

Nothing.

"Oh come on…" Porthos mutters, but Athos puts out a quick hand to silence him.

"And finally, Tous pour un, un pour tous."

All for one, and one for all.

Aramis’ head comes up, a slight frown crinkling his brow. “Did he just say…?”

"What a coincidence," Athos says drily. "Especially since I think we might all need reminding of that, every now and then."

Athos gets up from his rickety seat near the radio, picks up the bottle and moves to the ladder up to their sleeping space in the loft, stopping only to grasp Aramis firmly on the shoulder, briefly.

Porthos knows instantly that Athos is behind this of course, their unofficial motto and Aramis’ favourite saying. It’s only later, when Aramis is sleeping, that Athos will tell him of a conversation with the downed RAF pilot, who had turned out to be very grateful, a friend of someone in the BBC, and equally amused by childish innuendo .


End file.
